The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
There is a growing desire to be able to monitor, in real time, predefined geographic areas for security purposes. Such areas may include battlefield areas where military operations are underway or anticipated, border areas separating two countries, or stretches of highways or roads. Areas where large numbers of individuals might be expected often are also in need of security monitoring. Such areas may involve, without limitation, stadiums, public parks, tourist attractions, theme parks or areas where large groups of individuals might be expected to congregate, such as at a public rally. In many applications involving security monitoring, it is important to be able to quickly detect unauthorized activity or the presence of unauthorized persons, vehicles or even suspicious appearing objects within the area being monitored. However, present day monitoring and surveillance systems suffer from numerous limitations that can negatively impact their effectiveness in providing real time monitoring of large geographic areas or areas densely populated with individuals, vehicles or objects.
Present day monitoring and surveillance systems often employ static cameras to image various predetermined geographic areas. However, due to their relatively large size or because of physical obstacles that may be present in their fields of view, such static cameras may have limited effectiveness in many applications. Also, persistent monitoring of predefined geographic areas with static cameras can be difficult for long periods of time, as such cameras may require periodic maintenance or inspection for ensure their operation. By “persistent” monitoring it is meant continuous, real time (i.e., virtually instantaneously) monitoring. Static cameras provide limited field-of-view, and therefore monitoring a large area, such a long highway or a border crossing area, may require prohibitively large numbers of cameras to be used, thus making their use cost prohibitive. When deployed as fixed monitoring devices in challenging environments such as in deserts or in areas where extreme cold temperatures are present, then protecting the cameras from long term exposure to the elements also becomes a concern, and such extreme weather conditions may also affect the reliability or longevity of the expensive cameras.
Fixed static cameras often are not easily adaptable to changes in surveillance requirements. For example, situations may exist, such as on a battlefield, where the geographic area to be monitored may change from day to day or week to week. Redeploying statically mounted cameras in the limited time available may be either impossible, difficult, or even hazardous to the safety of workers or technicians that must perform such work.
Human piloted helicopters with onboard mounted cameras have also been used for airborne surveillance and monitoring purposes. However, while human piloted helicopters can provide visual monitoring of large areas, they are nevertheless quite expensive in terms of asset cost (helicopter), operational cost (pilot salary) and maintenance costs. In addition monitoring duration may be limited by the available number of pilots and helicopters. Still further piloted helicopters may not be able to fly during in inclement weather conditions. Even flying of human piloted helicopters at night adds an additional degree of hazard to the pilot(s) flying such missions. Still further, the limited fuel carrying capacity of a remotely piloted helicopter makes such a vehicle generally not as well suited to covering large geographic areas, such as geographic borders between two countries.
Remote controlled (RC) helicopters are lower in cost than piloted helicopters but still require a trained RC pilot for each RC helicopter. Thus, monitoring a large area with multiple RC helicopters may require a large number of expensive, trained RC pilots. In addition, the monitoring duration is limited by the available number of RC trained pilots and RC helicopters. Remote controlled (RC) helicopters require trained RC pilots and thus monitoring a large area with multiple helicopters requires a large number of expensive trained RC pilots and operators. This can be especially costly if persistent monitoring is required (i.e., essentially round-the-clock real time monitoring) of an area needs to be performed. Also, RC helicopters can only fly within line-of-sight (LOS) of its associated RC pilot.
Even with static cameras, human piloted helicopters, RC helicopters or other types of RC vehicles, if one camera becomes inoperable, or if one vehicle has to land or is lost to a hostile action by an enemy, then it may be difficult or impossible for the remaining static cameras, or the remaining airborne vehicles (piloted or RC) to accomplish the needed surveillance of the geographic area being monitored. This is especially so with fixedly mounted cameras. Because of practical limitations with human piloted helicopters, e.g., fuel supply or pilot fatigue, the remaining airborne helicopters may not be able to cover the geographic area of the lost helicopter. The same limitations of RC pilot fatigue may exist with RC helicopters, and thus limit the ability of the remaining, airborne RC helicopters to cover the area of the lost RC helicopter.
Still further, if one RC vehicle must land because of a mechanical problem or lack of fuel, the task of having a ground crew reorganize the responsibilities of the remaining RC vehicles may be too detailed and extensive to accomplish in a limited amount of time. This could be particularly so in a battlefield environment, or possibly even in a stadium monitoring application. In such situations, the need for a ground crew to immediately change the flight responsibilities of the remaining RC vehicles and re-deploy them in a manner that enables them to carry out the monitoring task at hand presents a significant challenge.